Ignited

by Desni Dantone

CHAPTER 25

  Alec had a place twenty minutes away. While he climbed into the front seat to direct Callie, I was left to tend to Nathan alone. I found the other stab wound in the upper left chest, scarily close to his heart, and wrapped a shirt around his shoulder to cover it. We stopped at a pharmacy along the way and Callie ran inside for first aid supplies. Minutes later, Alec led us into his neighborhood.

  It was in the not-so-nice part of town. Narrow houses lined the street side by side, with no yards, bars on the windows, and broken steps leading to the front doors. The sun had set along the way and, as the darkness crept in, the creatures of the night assembled on the sidewalks in clusters, waiting for trouble, or a car to hijack. Oddly, no one looked twice at the flashy Mustang that passed.

  I got the impression Alec had asserted his authority in the neighborhood a long time ago, and no one was going to mess with us. Nor did anyone bat an eye at the three of us hauling a severely injured Nathan into the house.

  Surprisingly, considering the filthy outside appearance, the inside of Alec’s place was immaculate, with crisp sterling silver kitchen appliances, a big screen TV, and a large plush living room set. It was surprisingly grown up and modern for a teenager. I was starting to think there was a lot about Alec I didn’t know.

  We wrestled Nathan through the kitchen and living room and into Alec’s bed at the back of the house. The three of us worked quickly at getting him out of his blood-soaked clothes, down to his boxers. Callie and I took to wrapping the bandages around his chest and abdomen and covered the two gashes under nearly an inch of dressing. Alec wrapped the gunshot wound in his thigh. When we finished, we laid him back in the bed and pulled the satin sheets up.

  Aside from rushing him to the nearest hospital, which was apparently out of the question, there was nothing more to do.

  “He needs rest to heal,” Alec murmured as he moved to the side.

  I jerked my hand away when Alec reached for it. “I’m not leaving him.” I lowered to the edge of the bed beside Nathan and defiantly tipped my chin up at Alec and Callie. If he died, I would never forgive either of them.

  “Kris...” Callie started. I shut her down with a hard glare. She shifted uneasily to Alec’s side.

  I turned my back on them to look down at Nathan. His eyes were closed, his face pale and streaked with blood. I gathered a bandage from the nightstand, and wet it with my tongue. As I wiped his face, my hand quivered like it had a mind of its own.

  Someone placed a hand on my shoulder. I shrugged it off. “Leave us alone.”

  There was a brief pause before Alec and Callie both shuffled out of the room. The door clicked softly behind them.

  Alone with Nathan, the tears I had been holding back finally found their escape. My body shook from the flood of emotion and I lowered my head, unable to look at him any longer.

  I opened my hands in my lap and, seeing Nathan’s blood all over them, I scrubbed until they were no longer red from his blood, but from my desperate attempt to get it off of me. My vision blurred from the tears, but from the look of his ashen face when I looked up again, it was clear he was knocking on death’s door.

  And it was all for me. He had stayed to save me.

  “Why did you do that?” I whispered as I wiped the tears on my cheeks with both hands.

  He didn’t respond. I pressed my hand to his chest and felt its subtle rise and fall. His breaths were shallow and slow, his heart beat fast and weak. His eyes fluttered open, barely, and struggled to focus on me.

  “Tell me what I can do. Tell me how to help you,” I pleaded.

  His eyes rolled shut, and I hung my head as the overwhelming sense of helplessness crumbled me. He was going to die. Right here, right now, Nathan was going to die and there was nothing I could do to help him.

  Fingers brushed along the back of my neck. I snapped my head up to see Nathan’s eyes slit open and his arm outstretched. His hand cupped the back of my head and tugged, gently guiding me toward him.

  Understanding his intention, I dropped my head to his good shoulder. Doing my best to not hurt him, I stretched my legs out beside his and curled my body around him.

  “Just stay with me.” His voice was barely a whisper.

  “I will,” I murmured, my mouth pressed against the smooth skin where his shoulder met his neck. My tears slid down his chest, and were soaked up by the bandages.

  His cheek pressed against my forehead. The way his stubble tickled and sparked my senses only made me more aware of his battered body against mine. I watched the barely visible rise and fall of his chest and vowed to stay where I was all night, watching. As long as his chest was moving, he was alive.

  Even if it was by a thread.